The present invention relates to a scraper-protector for use with a garbage disposal unit.
A garbage disposal unit is a mechanical device having a motor and a set of blades inside a housing installed beneath a sink drain opening as a part of the drain plumbing. Garbage passes through the sink drain opening into the garbage disposal unit, and, when the motor is started, the blades grind the particles into pieces small enough to be carried away by water through the plumbing system.
Such garbage disposal units possess apparent and well known advantages, but they also have given rise to several serious problems. For one thing, when washing or rinsing kitchen and dining implements, a spoon, fork, or similar object has often fallen down through the sink drain opening into the garbage disposal unit. When such a fall was unobserved and the unit was turned on, the object was mutilated and the blades of the disposal unit were damaged. Even when the fall was observed, retraction and recovery of the implement has usually been difficult and time consuming and, unless done carefully, dangerous.
Another problem has been that of splash-back, for many garbage disposal units have, during operation, sent fountains of water and garbage, including large pieces of material, flying up through the sink drain opening, sometimes into the face of the user. Splash-back has always been messy and inconvenient; sometimes it has been dangerous.
A further problem has been that of getting the garbage from the sink into the drain opening and from there into the garbage disposal unit, especially when the installation includes rubber fingers at the top of the disposal unit. There has been no really convenient and suitable tool for doing this. Some people have used their hands; some have used brushes or rags, which have themselves sometimes fallen into the disposal unit and resulted not only in their loss or damage, but have tended to damage the blades of the garbage disposal unit.
Such a scraper should be readily available. Sometimes, for example, a spatula normally used for cooking has also been used for scraping duty, but the spatula is not normally at hand. Furthermore, scraping tends to damage or degrade a good piece of cooking equipment, even if it does not fall into the garbage disposal unit. There is, therefore, a need for a readily available, sturdy, easy-to-use scraper. Preferably, such a scraper would be normally in the sink and have other uses when not being used for scraping.
The use of solid drain cover or stopper, of the type normally used to seal off a drain opening when filling the sink with water, has not solved these problems. Water must be able to flow into and through the garbage disposal disposal unit when the unit is being operated and also when the sink is used for peeling vegetables with running water. A stopper obstructs the flow of water into the drain and is somewhat difficult to remove when the sink is full, or even partially filled, especially when it contains very hot water. Leaving a solid stopper slightly ajar can permit water to flow into the drain while the opening remains substantially protected. However, such placement and alignment of the stopper is often difficult, and the stopper tends to slip into its completely sealed position or into a more open position than is desired. Moreover, projections extending up from the stopper can provide an obstruction in the sink that interferes with use of the sink.
A common attempt to solve the problems described above has been to place in the drain hole a rubber stopper having a plurality of fingers emanating from the center of the stopper. However, such a stopper, while keeping some foreign objects out of the garbage disposal unit does not bar the passage of items having significant weight, such as silverware, which is heavy enough, if dropped, to depress the rubber fingers and fall right into the disposal unit. This attempt has, therefore, been unsuccessful at protecting either the implements or blades of the disposal unit and has been primarily useful only in preventing splash back of objects that would otherwise be split out of the disposal unit while it is being operated.
The Loos U.S. Pat. No. 4,297,761, attempts to solve some of these problems by providing a combination scraper and sink plug. When the Loos device is being used as a plug, water is unable to flow from the sink into the garbage disposal unit, as it should during operation of the unit. Moreover, the Loos scraper blade is very long, reaching down to a level just above the garbage disposal unit blades when the plug is in place. Such a scraper, (if the plug is used during operation of the blades) is certain to be damaged by some of the flying pieces of garbage lying just above the blades and also to interfere with the blades' grinding action. The use of such a scraper as a pusher is thus generally undesirable and may even aggravate the problems. The Loos patent suggests, but does not illustrate or adequately describe, a modified device that would permit water flow around or through the plug portion, but the patent offers no suggestion of how to prevent the modified device from falling through into the disposal unit. Support from below cannot safely be relied on, and there is no other possible support implied. Moreover, in either form of this device the upstanding handle projects a substantial distance up into the sink, so that one would not be able to hold a pot or pan flat on the sink bottom when the Loos plug is in place.
Another device, shown in Gaetke U.S. Pat. No. 3,780,393 also provides a scraper with a long depending blade that would tend to interfere with the action of the disposal blades, even whether or not it actually engages them. This device provides no protection against splash-back nor prevention of passage of implements and silverware down into the disposal unit. An upstanding handle, intended to prevent the Gaetke scraper from falling through the sink drain opening and down into the disposal unit, extends up too far and becomes an undesirable obstruction in the sink, preventing pots and pans from being put into the sink with their bottoms truly horizontal.
A device is needed which accomplishes the purposes already referred to and solves the problems that have been discussed.